The Slave Parable

September 11, 2015 Comments Off Posted in: Inspiration, Self Development

Purchased Slaves

There was once an aristocratic family, very wealthy and powerful they owned great estate and profitable ventures.

There came a time when their holdings became too large for their hired workmen to keep up with the workload so they decided to purchase some slaves.

At the slave market they made their selection of the sturdiest looking stock of both genders and bought as many as they felt necessary. Shackled and led in chains the merchandise was taken back to the estate where the newly-bought slaves were promptly broken into the hard life of labour and servitude their masters desired of them.

Their work was backbreaking and hard just as their taskmasters were unrelenting in cruelty and demands of ever higher workload delivery per slave every day. When the slaves gave birth their children became property of their masters and when old enough were brought into the work field to labour beside their parents morning till evening.

They were dehumanized and stripped of all hope to keep their natures subservient. Denied education and ownership of property they had nothing to aspire to but to remain in the good graces of their masters. Those who showed any desire for more in terms of liberty were brutally put down with hideous beatings and amputation of digits in addition to denial of even the barest of needs like food and water for days. But the slaves began to dream of a day.

Their ordeal continued as generation after generation of slaves served generation after generation of aristocrats whose holdings kept increasing as they encouraged their slaves to have many children. Many slaves meant much productivity which in turn meant much more wealth. But their slaves kept dreaming.

After the slow passage of time and a hundred years of little change in the welfare of the slaves the slaves revolted and took up arms against their masters demanding their rights to life, liberty and property! Their masters overwhelmed by the vehemence of the slaves who now outnumbered their owners 10 to 1 capitulated and agreed to the unprecedented demands.

The now former-slaves were allocated a dreary piece of land right next to their former owner’s and less that one-tenth of its size. This didn’t matter to the former slaves as they were free and could earn wages as free men but the choice of land allotted them was not without guile.

As time passed the generation of the freed men passed on and their children born without any experience of slavery began to come to adolescence. As they played in the land allotted them they would look over the low fence separating them from the land of the aristocrats and they would envy the finely dressed children running around well tended gardens filled with all manner of fruit. They spied at the magnificent buildings not too distant and different wonders like running water, constant power supply and sleek automobiles.

They were sorely tempted but the stories of the horrors their parents endured as slaves still rang in their heads so they contented themselves on their miserable lot in life. To them it was better to be a poor freeman than to be a rich slave.

They soon became adults and children were born to them. Children who could see the discrepancy between their poor existence and the opulent life of their neighbours. Children who wanted the best in life and didn’t mind offering up themselves to have a little of the good life.

Once old enough several of them jumped over the fence and begged the aristocrats to take them in as servants. All they wanted was the right to claim to be from the aristocratic side of the land even if their pay was poor and they were to live in the squalid boy’s quarters. They even wished that their own children will inherit those same rights for the same wages as they now sought. When asked by the head of the aristocrats why they were signing up for a life slavery and leaving the life of liberty their ancestors fought for, they answered that the life of poverty they were running from was worse than any enslavement.

The descendants of the slaves returned willingly to serve the descendants of the men who enslaved their fathers and today believe they have a better lot in life. They enthusiastically work at demeaning jobs they refuse to take up in their own land for less pay than other free men would accept.

Now can you tell:
Who were the slaves?
Who are the aristocrats?
Who are the volunteer servants?
What is the low fence?
Where is the dreary land allotted the slaves?

A parable by PHILIP CHUKWUKA AMAMCHUKWU